Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Bob Hawke, artist Michael Nelson Jagamara and the Duke of Edinburgh at the official opening of new Parliament House, Canberra, 1988. Photo: National Archives of Australia

Apparently Keating insisted on witnesses. But he did not have the numbers to challenge so he backed off.

The issue simmered on.

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In an attempt to distract attention, Hawke and Keating even obligingly posed in shirtsleeves in The Lodge for the front-page photograph of the first issue of the Sunday Age newspaper on August 20, 1989, feigning that their leadership brawl was over.

But John Dawkins, who was minister for employment, education and training, said last month cabinet knew nothing.

"Apart from those people who produced the agreement, I don't think anyone knew," he said at the National Archives press conference on the cabinet papers.

"I think there were those who believed there should be change at the top at some point. But I don't think we knew or understood there had been an agreement affected in that regard."

Dawkins said that in cabinet there were no clear tensions between the prime minister and the treasurer.

"That came a bit later. The treasurer was beginning to get a bit restive during this period but the working relation between them from my vantage point continued to be a good one."

Dawkins regretted that the pair were often at loggerheads now over who should take the accolades for Labor's run of successful governments.

"This dispute that seems to exist between the two of them about who was the major author of the reform program - from my point of view each needed the other," he said.

"They were a very effective team. Why they can't be satisfied they were joint authors of the government's project has always baffled me."

New Parliament House not everyone's cup of tea

Politicians finally got a Parliament House in keeping with the size of their egos.

They had been jammed in the Provisional Parliament House since 1927, when the Commonwealth Parliament moved from the Parliament of Victoria and relocated in the new capital, Canberra.

The Queen opened the new Parliament House on May 9, 1988.

Then minister for administrative services Stewart West told cabinet the following October that the cost of the building had increased to $1070.12 million and after several months' use MPs were happy with the change.

"It is proving both functional for the Parliament itself and a tremendous drawcard for hundreds of thousands of fellow Australian and overseas visitors," West he said.

But some lamented aspects of the move.

John Dawkins, the minister for employment, education and training in the Hawke government, recalled last month the new building was so vast that everybody became separated and contact between ministers and backbenchers was lost.

He said People stopped going to the dining room and started eating in their new, large offices, he said.

"It led to a lot of dislocation, whereas in the the old building we were all huddled together. The worst thing that happened was that the non-members bar didn't work in the new Parliament building.

"So the opportunities for engagement between politicians on both sides and with the press basically disappeared."